My friend Phil Kelly, who has died aged 59, was an extraordinary and gifted painter. His vibrant canvases have captured the imagination of collectors and supporters worldwide, including the poet Seamus Heaney, for whose wife, Marie, he completed a set of book illustrations, and the chef Rick Stein, for whose Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall, Phil created a mural. Although raised in Ireland and England, he had lived in Mexico City since 1989 and became a Mexican citizen in 1999.

Phil was educated at Rugby school, Warwickshire. He was expelled, and later attended college in Bath, where his artistic talent was immediately recognised. He moved to London, to Whitby, in north Yorkshire, and then to Portugal, subsidising his painting with a variety of occupations.

His desire for light and colour took him in 1983 to Mexico City. He arrived with £50 in his pocket and no Spanish. He was on a visit to England in 1985 when an earthquake struck Mexico City, taking close friends and all of his Mexican work. He returned to work and exhibiting in London, but left for Mexico again in 1989, marrying Ruth Munguia, a cultural administrator, the following year. They had two daughters, Ana Elena and Maria José.

Phil Kelly's Taxi Bajo el Puente Photograph: Richard Selby

His career was flourishing and he took up painting full time. Ruth was a major influence in this, organising exhibitions and promoting his work. After the art collector Patrick J Murphy happened upon his exhibition Babel Descifrada (Babel Deciphered), at Mexico City's Museum of Modern Art in 1996, shows followed in Dublin.

Wherever Phil lived, there were always the same ingredients that reflected the man: drawings and colour trials taped to walls, good literature, blues or jazz music, wine, excellent food and paint. Paint to be used and paint already nailed to the canvas – to adapt one of his favourite quotes – filled his life. He has left a wonderful, colourful slice of life behind him in his paintings and in the memory of a warm, generous, whole-hearted man.

He is survived by Ruth and his daughters.

• This article was amended on 14 October 2010. The original stated that Phil Kelly was born in Dublin.